A state health official has confirmed a second case of flesh-eating bacteria on Kauai, and said officials are awaiting test results on a third possible case.
Epidemiological Specialist Joe Elm of the Department of Health said the department was informed Monday that a boy from Kauai is being treated on Oahu for necrotizing fasciitis.
The infection is "a rapidly progressive and severe form of the Group A Streptococcus disease which destroys muscles, fat and skin tissues," according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
The boy was first diagnosed at Wilcox Hospital with septic arthritis in his elbow. The CDC says it is an infection in a joint caused by bacteria "or, more rarely by a fungus or virus." Elm said Tuesday that the infection progressed to necrotizing fasciitis. The boy was flown to Oahu for treatment at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children.
In an unrelated case, John Stem, 49, of Lihue underwent surgery last weekend at Wilcox Hospital for the disease and is continuing treatment at Straub Clinic & Hospital in Honolulu.
STEM suffered an abscess below his right knee that became infected. The disease attacked his left thigh, back and abdomen and spread to the left side of his body.
Stem goes to the Hyperbaric Treatment Center at Kuakini Medical Center once or twice a day to receive high levels of oxygen to treat the disease. "His spirits are high. He’s aggressively fighting this," said his mother, Janice Bond.
A third suspected case involves Kolohe Kapu, 31, of Kalaheo, Kauai. Kapu said he noticed a boil on his left inner thigh a couple of days after he went swimming at a beach on Oahu’s Waianae Coast in the latter part of January. He began to experience flulike symptoms before he returned to Kauai.
On Feb. 1 he went to the emergency room at Wilcox Hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with a urinary tract infection and prescribed antibiotics. The flulike symptoms, including a 103-degree fever, dizziness and lightheadedness, persisted, and the boil on his thigh "started to get hard as a rock," he said.
On Feb. 5, Kapu returned to the emergency room. The infection had spread 11 inches, from above his knee toward his groin. One of the doctors diagnosed Kapu with necrotizing fasciitis before they performed emergency surgery to cut infected tissue from an area 11 inches long, 3 to 4 inches wide and 3 inches deep.
He spent 26 days at Wilcox before he was discharged. A nurse visits him three days a week to clean the wound and change his dressings.
Kapu said he was told that had he waited one more day to go the emergency room, he probably would have died.
State epidemiologists are awaiting results of lab tests from Wilcox to determine whether Kapu had necrotizing fasciitis. "We’re still looking into it," said Elm.
Elm said such cases make up a small percentage of a strep infections but highlight the need to adequately treat wounds. "Things can go wrong if you don’t clean for your scrapes, cuts and bruises," he said.
